Expensive. Short battery life. Audio not for those seeking a crisp, defined response.

Bottom Line

With boosted bass response, a heart rate sensor, and a waterproof design, the Jabra Elite Sport is a quality wire-free earphone pair aimed at athletes and exercise buffs.

As more cable-free wireless earphone pairs emerge, we're getting a better sense of common design elements (like portable charging cases), as well as aspects that set them apart. At $249.99, the Jabra Elite Sport is one of the more expensive pairs we've tested, and indeed comes with a charging case. It also has a waterproof design, and an in-ear heart rate sensor and accelerometer to track various health stats—features many competing models lack. Audio performance is powerful, with boosted bass to motivate your workout—though it's not for those seeking an accurate frequency response.

Design

Fitting neatly into the design paradigm that's been established by the Apple AirPods, Bragi Dash, and Samsung Gear IconX in the last year, the Elite Sport ships with a compact portable charging case that each earpiece snaps into, held in place by magnets. As mentioned, the pair is waterproof up to one meter deep for up to 30 minutes, with an IP67 rating. Furthermore, Jabra offers a three-year warranty against sweat damage. That helps make the price a little easier to swallow.

The matte black design of the case and earpieces is complemented by an array of black or dark gray eartips—there are three silicone pairs (small, medium, and large), and three foam pairs (small, medium, and large). There are also silicone sleeves with fins—EarWings, Jabra calls them—that slip onto the outer edge of the earpieces. It might be easier if the tips and wings were connected as one piece—there's some assembly required, and getting things in the proper position isn't the most obvious process. Regardless, once you get the right combination, the fit is very secure—ideal for staying in place during intense exercise. We suggest the foam tips for the most secure fit—and also some added bass depth, if that's your thing.

The left earpiece's outer panel houses plus and minus buttons for adjusting volume (which work in conjunction with your mobile device's master volume levels) and track navigation. This can make for some easy misfires—if you press the plus button for too long, for instance, you'll skip the track instead of raising the volume. Pressing these buttons when no music is playing will give you a voice prompt with how much battery life you have left.

The right earpiece houses a multifunction button that controls playback, call management, and power. Double tapping this button allows you to hear your surroundings better, activating a feature Jabra calls HearThrough. HearThrough can be used while audio is playing, allowing you to exercise and still have a sense of your surroundings—a solid feature. Without it activated, the Sport Elite provides some passive noise isolation, particularly when combined with the foam eartips.

One peculiar feature is that removing the left earpiece mutes the right earpiece. This is useful if you want to hear the outside world, but you can just as easily pause your music for the same basic effect, and removing the right earpiece doesn't pause playback.

Pairing is a quick, simple process, and once paired, you'll be prompted to download the Jabra Sport app. Once you're paired, any time you pull the earpieces out of the charging case, they will auto-pair with your device, as long as it's in-range. The top button on the right earpiece activates the app, which we'll discuss more in the next section.

The built-in mic offers better-than-average intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 6s, we could understand every word clearly, though there were occasional audio artifacts that are more or less par for the course with in-ear Bluetooth mics.

In addition to the eartips, wings, and the charging case, the Elite Sport ships with a short micro USB charging cable. Like most cable-free options, battery life is paltry—you gets a mere three hours per charge. That said, the charging case carries an extra two full charges, and Jabra claims 15 minutes of charging will get you an hour of playback.

Fitness You Can Hear

The Jabra Sport app works with the Elite Sport's "clinical grade" in-ear heart rate monitor as well as a tri-axis accelerometer. As with any heart rate monitor, a good fit is crucial for accurate readings. Since the Elite Sport fits easily and snugly in your ear, detecting heart rate was never an issue in testing.

On a 2.4-mile outdoor run, the Elite Sport delivered accurate readings on par with the Fitbit Alta HR, a wrist-based tracker, and the Polar H10 chest strap. During the run, the Elite Sport was generally within 5-10 beats per minute of the Polar H10 and 5bpm of the Alta HR. However, it did take the Elite Sport a few seconds longer to register sudden changes. This isn't a huge issue, but it's something to keep in mind if you're a fan of interval training.

The Elite Sport was also highly accurate in tracking distance, speed, and pace in testing. The only metric you might find lacking is overall steps, but we don't think that's a problem, since you aren't wearing the pair all day. Instead, it tracks cadence or steps per minute, which is a helpful tool for preventing fatigue and injuries.

The app itself is great if you want a lot of data, but prefer a distraction-free run. If you don't want to constantly look at your phone, you can easily customize voice readouts to periodically update you on a whole slew of metrics, like cadence, distance, duration, heart rate, and splits.

Audio Performance

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the Elite Sport delivers a powerful deep bass thump. At top, unwise listening levels, the bass doesn't distort, and at more reasonable listening levels, the lows are still quite robust. Anyone who's motivated by deep bass while exercising will likely be pleased, while purists seeking an accurate frequency response will not.

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Elite Sport's overall sound signature. The drums here get quite a bit of extra heft, but not so much that things sound unnatural. Callahan's baritone vocals also receive a rich, boosted presence in the low-mids. If anything, the Elite Sport could use more high-mid and high frequency presence. The sound signature isn't quite muffled, but it's not bright and crisp, either—it leans toward the lows more often than not.

The kick drum loop on Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild" further illustrates this point—the attack of the loop is usually a fierce presence in the mix. with plenty of high-mid edge that allows it to slice through the layers of the track. Through the Elite Sport, however, that edge is dulled and the low frequency thump is enhanced. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with plenty of deep bass, and the vocals, despite not having as much high-mid and high frequency presence as usual, are still delivered clearly. So things are not muffled or dulled to a fault, but this is a bass-forward sound with very little added sculpting in the highs to balance it out.

Classical music, if that's what you listen to while you exercise (no judgments), also gets an added bass depth and a dulling of the highs that's unlikely to please most fans of orchestral tracks. If you're in search of clarity and articulation, the Elite Sport is probably not what you're looking for.

Conclusions

Sonically, the Jabra Elite Sport is a bass-forward earphone pair that could use a little more high-mid presence to make things pop, but it will likely appeal to those motivated by deep lows while exercising. In terms of fit and design, the Elite Sport is a winner, and its fitness tracking abilities are solid. As for the more obvious competition, it's worth checking out the AirPods, Gear IconX, and Bragi Dash (the most comparable of the group) to see whether any of them better suits your needs than the Jabra Elite Sport. In this nascent category, there are few clear winners, but most of the options we've tested have unique attributes that might work for you. And if you're looking for a cable-free earphones but all of the models above are out of your price range, consider the very affordable, but not exercise-focused Axgio AH-T1.

More From Tim

Victoria Song is the wearables and smart home analyst at PCMag. Since graduating from Temple University?s Japan Campus in 2010, she's been found reporting and editing in every corner of the newsroom at The ACCJ Journal, The Japan News, and New York bureau of The Yomiuri Shimbun. In her spare time, she bankrupts herself going to theater, buying expa... See Full Bio

Jabra Elite Sport

Jabra Elite Sport

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